


I love You

by Starculler



Series: Lost To The Fade [1]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Dragon Age II, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, Time-Skip, pre-Here Lies The Abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 09:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11620782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/pseuds/Starculler
Summary: Fenris loves Hawke wholeheartedly, and one day .... One day he will finally say the words back.





	I love You

**Author's Note:**

> Written back in May and brought over from my [Tumblr](https://nataworkoffiction.tumblr.com/), it's a precursor to something larger I'm working on. Takes place after DA2 and up until just after Here Lies the Abyss.
> 
> Inspired by [this piece](http://siriusdraws.tumblr.com/post/147327524305/leave-it-be) from Tumblr user [siriusdraws](http://siriusdraws.tumblr.com/) and possibly one other that I still have yet to find/identify (portraying a similar situation).

Fenris sits on the edge of Hawke’s bed, silent as the pre-dawn light crawls up the walls from behind the cracked open curtains. The room is warm, thick against his bare skin, but not unpleasant. The only sound is Hawke’s soft snoring – a sound Fenris had once found aggravating, but had at some point become nigh-unbearably endearing. He listens to Hawke’s breathing hitch, a quick snuffle into the plush pillows under his rugged face, and feels his traitorous mouth quirk up at the edges.

He doesn’t look back at Hawke when the bedsheets rustle, knows the man won’t wake fully yet for another hour. He continues to stare at the walls, one hand fiddling with the scrap of red cloth tied carefully around his wrist, even when he feels Hawke’s thick fingers brush lazily against the skin of his back. Fenris stills.

Hawke traces the pattern of scars along Fenris’ lower back, taking extra care when he touches the lyrium ones. He hums as he traces, growling and mostly tuneless, and that more than anything lets Fenris finally take a breath. Lets him sink into the kneading warmth of Hawke’s insistent fingers on his skin. It lasts until Hawke’s fingers get hallway up Fenris’ back before the burly man’s arms are snaking around Fenris’ waist, face pressed cheek to skin behind him.

Fenris pulls his legs back up onto the bed, shifting in Hawke’s loose grip until their eyes meet. Fenris, on his knees, has the height advantage while Hawke is content to remain half-slumped, a tangle of sheets and limbs. He touches Hawke’s cheek, fingers ghosting over rough, unshaven skin as warmth pools in his gut and pushes up into his chest. An exasperating rush of fondness courses through him, leaves him breathless when he watches Hawke’s lips pull into a warm smile.

Words clog his throat, pushing at his tongue in their eagerness to spill from his mouth, but they remain unsaid. It isn’t too much or too soon – they’re long past such trivialities, been through too much together. His hesitation comes not from fear, but overwhelming need. There are things he wants to say so badly that it burns beneath his skin, behind his eyes, setting every fiber of his being aflame. He doesn’t speak, not then. He acts.

Fenris leans down, tugging Hawke’s face up, tilting it so when their lips meet there is no sleepy fumbling on Hawke’s part. Fenris melts into him, using his advantage to push Hawke back until they’re a tangle of limbs on the bed, nothing but a rumpled sheet between them. They pull apart, panting from the breathless fervor of the kiss and their growing need of the other. Hawke pecks him quickly on the nose, voice breathy as he speaks the words Fenris will never tire of hearing.

“I love you.”

Fenris grins, shark like, and dips down for another heavy kiss. His response builds between their lips, ready when they pull apart again, but it refuses to move. Instead, he presses his face into the crook of Hawke’s neck, fingers working into his hair, and listens to Hawke’s throaty laugh.

“I love you,” Hawke says again after they’ve tired out, sun hardly past the horizon.

He presses a kiss to Fenris’ forehead, shifting so he can better wrap Fenris against himself. Fenris snuggles gratefully into the warmth, watching the pulse beat in Hawke’s neck. _I love you_ he doesn’t say aloud, not at the moment.

_I love you_ he will say when they’ve both returned home, safe and wrapped up in each other just like this.

\-- -- -- -- --

Fenris sits at the edge of Hawke’s bed, silent. Everything is silent, still, pale in the moon’s dim glow. He hunches over, elbows on his knees and fingers raking painfully through mussed up white hair. Greasy bangs cling to sweat-soaked skin, shifting as Fenris falls backward onto cold bedsheets and squeezes his eyes shut.

One hand drags down the side of his face, pausing long enough to scrub at his burning eyes before it settles at his throat. The red scrap of fabric wrapped around his wrist burns his skin where it brushes against his jaw and he wants simultaneously to rip it off and clutch it close to him. Instead, he curls onto his side and stares out the room’s window, through the shredded curtains and broken glass.

He screws his eyes shut, staving off the sting of tears that threaten to spring forth, and doesn’t move for a long time. In the darkness behind his eyelids he can hear echoes of a deep voice turned soft in private moments. He can feel the touch of a ghost on his skin as painfully familiar as the guilt that threatens to tear him apart from the inside out.

_I love you_

The words are like thunder in his ears and acid in his throat. He snaps open his eyes and there is no holding back anymore. The tears come in a rush and he cries ugly, loud sobs that rip from his chest and up past every shredded defense he’s kept up against these feelings for the past several days.

“I love you,” he says once the crying dies down, knowing it will never reach the ears of the man the words are meant for.

“I love you,” he says to the scrap of red fabric tied around his wrist as his eyes droop with the sudden exhaustion that grief drags out.


End file.
